Posted on 05/18/2007 9:06:58 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
ROOT OF ALL EVIL?
THE God Delusion - based on Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion - is the best documentary I've ever seen. And, I imagine, will ever see. No jokes. No smart-arse cracks. No witty asides.
Dawkins is a scientist and passionate atheist who has produced a stunning, thoroughly researched and expertly executed work that flatly denies the existence of God and illustrates what a destructive force religion is. Even in its mildest form. This provocative and entertaining ride will have some believers coming out the other end as atheists. And every Bible basher, Torah toter and Koran carrier calling the ABC to complain.
As I watched this masterpiece unfold, I couldn't remember the last time I had seen something so brilliant on the idiot box. Dawkins unapologetically refuses to treat religion differently to any other subject. There is no tiptoeing in fear of "offending" anyone (how you can offend people with truth is beyond me). Dawkins has harnessed his skill as a scientist, his hunger for truth and his rage to prove that God is a delusion that's infecting the world. He refers to "the process of non-thinking called faith" and bemoans "that the idea of a divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe". He liberates the viewer with the conclusion that "atheism is life-affirming in a way religion can never be".
Atheists will watch this show and feel as if they have died and gone to heaven as they see a bloke far more smarterer than themselves poke that animal in the cage. The fundamentalists, the evangelicals, the dabblers and the moderates all cop it. Dawkins dismembers the lot with a scalpel. It's intoxicating for born-again atheists like myself. I have taken the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my Lord and personal saviour. That's right. I am a Pastafarian.
Atheism is, it seems, the new black. Dawkins' offering will not simply be preaching to the converted but actually convert fence-sitters with truth and reason.
Dawkins describes the God of the Old Testament as "the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it. Petty, vindictive, unforgiving and racist. An ethnic cleanser urging his people on to acts of genocide."
Then Moses cops it. Dawkins quotes a Bible story and asks: "How is this story morally distinguishable from Hitler's rape of Poland or Saddam Hussein's massacre of the Kurds or the Marsh Arabs?"
Dawkins' masterful command of the language and his glorious Britishness is a delight throughout: "So Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent individual. Nobody not bought up in the faith could reach to any verdict other than barking mad." He tells us that "killing for God is not just hideous murder but utterly ridiculous".
On Sunday night, if you listen carefully, you'll hear atheists all over Australia leaning back in their chairs, putting their feet on the coffee table and saying, "I'm with him." And I'll be one of them.
no- the only alternative to life in hell is salvation through Jesus Christ- JUST as God describes in His word- call it a wager if you will, but it boils down to either accepting what God states or not- We’re free to choose one way or the other. Besides, enough folks (2 billion + or so) have given testimony to the fact that God has a personal relationship with those who take the leap of faith and that the Holy Spirit confirms salvation. What’s not to like about the odds? Remember, the payoff is for eternity- this aint no fly by night temporary payoff like so many gambles we willingly engage in every day are- this is for ever.
I don’t see any practical differences in the murder rate of unbelievers over believers such that unbelief could be called a superior ‘life affirming’ belief.
There is no difference. Both are equally wrong.
Folks like Dawkins have chosen to invest their modicum of 'faith muscle' in areas which reinforce their own personal importance to their surrounding universe ... arrogance run amok, IMHO.
Fundamentalist Atheism (the absolute belief that you can and have proved there is no God) is the most irrationally act of religious faith there is
They must not be taught from the Old Testment then.
Proverbs 21:2
All a man's ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart.
You forgot to admit that, because of that, unbelief is not a superior 'life affirming' belief.
[That all religions cannot simultaneously be true does not reflexively mean that they are then all false.]
No other religion had a God that gave His own life on the cross freely for the forgiveness of sin so that we could then freely accept His pardon for our sins.
I simply can not understand why anyone would choose another religion that put the burden of salvation on ourselves and demanded our own perfection instead of listening to God and accepting a free gift. The gift of the pardon is real, it is confirmed by the Holy Spirit upon salvation, and it is continually reaffirmed through the guidance and teachigns of the Holy Spirit throuhgout one’s life. Which religions are wrong? The ones that ignore God and teach any other means of salvation than the one that God Himself layed out in His Own Word.
People get so bogged down in arguing over the most rediculous claims like ‘The bible wasn’t translated jot for tittle, so therefore non of it can be trusted’ or ‘God surely didn’t mean for His whole word to be taken literally’ instead of just accepting that FREE gift He provided and accepting salvation. They’d rather argue and contend till their dying breath that God’s word isn’t reliable. Makes no sense to me. It literally takes only a minute of trust to ensure an eternity of existence with God, yet people will spend a lifetime resisting that one minute of trust- rather than ask forgiveness as God asked us to do, we’ll fight against it till we die.
It’ls liek the judge standing before a defendant, holding out a piece of paper with a pardon on it, and telling the defendent “It’s yours for the taking- all you have to do is beleive you’ll be pardoned, ask for it, and it will be so” Yet we the defendents, for some reason just can’t seem to grasp this simple eternity changing fact. There are NO strings attached- it’s a FREE gift!
Bovine excrement! Dawkins fails to even engage any classical theological position. If he had throroughly researched his subject, he'd have to have engaged the classical position of God as simple being. Instead he seems to assume that the imbecilities of his opponents in the creation/evolution debate who have misunderstood complexity theory in their formulation of ID are representive of theism in general.
He also doesn't seem to have done much research on the effects of atheism when it is adopted as an official position by a state.
Through the ages, every tribe or culture has had a belief system that doesn’t make sense to outsiders. I suspect it is something genetically programmed in people; a strategy to help separate “them” from “us.” The atheists have their own belief system. It makes them feel superior to the common herd.
Or, it could mean that it is the heart that produces the actions. Actions done solely out of ritual with no heart-change are clearly meaningless.
Jeremiah 9:8 - "Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks with deceit. With his mouth each speaks cordially to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him."
To ask for forgiveness, one first must acknowledge that one is wrong. To acknowledge that one is wrong, one must first accept that one is not perfect/infallible.
Some people would rather not open the proverbial pandora’s box. After all, if one can be wrong about one thing, then one can be wrong about other things. Once the mantle of infallibility or perfectitude is removed, there is a great deal of wiggle room. For some, that is entirely too much wiggle room.
Nevertheless, I believe that this argument has very little indeed to do with intellectual prowess, philosophical sophistication, or emotional intelligence. Instead, the roots of this argument are found in the concepts of authority. Man wishes to have complete authority to do with himself as he’d like. God demands the understanding that we do not belong to ourselves, but rather we are His precious property, bought for the steepest price one can pay.
This is the struggle we all have with Him. Some to a greater degree than onthers. Some must go to further and further extremes to justify their appetite for self.
I’m not aware of one- The bible states that the apostles clearly said that the Jews had not accepted the gift of Salvation and so the covenent was offered to the Gentiles instead. This didn’t set well with the Jews of the time (Many Jews of that time actually did becoem saved, but sects of Jews refused to accept Christ as the Messiah.
God didn’t as far as I’m aware offer the covenent to those who would not accept it- is was a conditional covenent, and required sacrifice (The unspotted lambs etc) to cover the sins. Sin can not enter heaven, and the idea of the sacrifice was to cover the sin- to pardon it. The blood sacrifices only lasted just so long and only covered just so much sin, and had to be performed repeatedly- this syatem was broken due to the stubborness of man’s hearts, and God offered His Son as the final sacrifice to pardon forever.
The whole blood atonment of the old testament is much deeper than what I’ve described, and the parrallels between them and Christ’s finale atonement more invovled as well, but the whole thing boils down to the necessity of showing how the old system was flawed, to pave the way for the acceptence of the new way through the final atonement of Christ. Folks were supposed to see that ‘keeping the law’ was simply not possible due to our very sin nature, and should have accepted the final sacrifice as a burden relieving gift, however, although most did, some sects clung to the pride of ‘self-salvation’ through their own works- Pride simpyl would not allow them to admit that they were not hte oens who saved, but that it was Christ all along. Those in the old testament who truly understood what salvation meant, and understood that it was not the blood of the animals that saved, but rather their heart’s conditions, were the precursors for salvation of the Gentiles.
A very interesting note here: We gentiles are Jews- We’re descendents of the lost tribe of Ephraim- I’ll go into this more if you like.
Feel the love...
Thanks, You stated it much better than I could- I know that’s why the resitence, but it just makes no sense to me why they would do that when the eternal consequences are so severe.
The flying spaghetti monster, unindicted co-creator representing the Intelligent in Intelligent Design, must be laughing his sauce off.
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